This Magazine articles from November 2008

This Magazine archives from November 2008

Attempted genocide.(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2008... Reading "After 'The Apology'" (September/ October) by Catherine Rolfsen, I slowly came to the conclusions that Ms. Rolfsen was leading me to. I've never devoted enough thought to aboriginal issues (living in Newfoundland often makes them seem...

Billions served.(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2008... Even at present population and consumption levels the environmental deterioration is accelerating ("Pop goes the world," September/ October). What will population reaches 9.2 billion in 2050, a near 40 percent increase over the present? In most...

Two views of Jack Layton.(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Until I read James Laxer's article on the need to rehabilitate the NDP ("Look Back, Jack," July/August) I had thought that social progressives would welcome an alliance between the Liberals and the NDP. After all,...

Chasing Amy.(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2008... Megan Griffith-Greene ends her article about Amy Winehouse and other Hollywood bad girls ("Girls gone wild. So?" July/August) with the conclusion that, "Today's bad girls are tearing down the feminine ideal instead of just redefining it. It is...

The trickle-up crisis.(financial crisis)(Editorial)
November 1, 2008... THROUGHOUT SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER, headlines around the world shrieked about global economic chaos: stock exchanges from Toronto to Tokyo plunged by thousands of points, erasing hundreds of billions of dollars of investments. This, we were told,...

Fighting AIDS, one day at a time: Dr. Jane Philpott's campaign turns a day's pay into much more.(PROFILE)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ONE DAY'S SALARY might not mean much to most of us, but to Dr. Jane Philpott, founder of the Give a Day to World AIDS campaign, it might be just enough to save a life. In 2004, the Markham, Ont.-based family...

Small arms mean big trouble: arms-deal secrecy is ruining Canada's reputation.(EASILY MISSED)
November 1, 2008... THIS PAST JULY, Switzerland's Small Arms Survey released its 2008 annual report on which countries have the best and the worst records when it comes to transparency and the small arms trade--the diversion of weapons such as rifles and anti-tank...

Pelted with abuse: despite '80s activism, fur is back--and raking it in.(WHATEVER HAPPENED TO ... THE ANTI-FUR MOVEMENT?)
November 1, 2008... IN 1994, five of the world's hottest supermodels dropped their panties and proclaimed they'd rather go naked than wear fur. The flashy ads, which ran in major magazines including Newsweek and People, were the weapons of-choice for the anti-fur...

Discs bring risks: vinyl records' resurgence means more toxic PVC.(EASILY MISSED)(Brief article)
November 1, 2008... VINYL RECORDS, once the sole domain of audio purists and DJs, are once again becoming mainstream. While CD sales drop, vinyl sales are up 77 percent from last year, with everyone from indie acts to mainstays like Coldplay releasing vinyl...

Mythbustiers: what's real and what's fake in the porno biz?(LIST)
November 1, 2008... FEW MODERN INDUSTRIES are as murky and mysterious as pornography. So let's take a closer look at a few of porn's bigger myths and see what's real and what's all made up. 1. IN NORTH AMERICA, THE PORN INDUSTRY BRINGS IN MORE REVENUE THAN...

Get ships into shape: making treatment mandatory would protect fragile great lakes.(ARGUMENT)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] FOR DECADES, Lake Erie was the toxic dumping ground of the American industrial heartland. Public pressure in the 1970s led to a multimillion dollar cleanup, and today, Lake Erie is considered a miracle: The Lake That...

Merchants of death: Canada's toxic exports wreak havoc abroad.(GRAPHIC)
November 1, 2008... PORN AND MILITARY GOODS are hardly the only dirty items this country is exporting. While cars, lumber, and, of course, energy made up much of the $465 billion worth of goods we've exported in the last three years, we've also been busy shipping...

At the dark end of the street: it's time to legalize and regulate sex work.(LAW)
November 1, 2008... The beginning of my education about sex work came from essay by Carol Leigh, also known as the Scarlot Harlot, a veteran sex worker, writer, and activist. To my naive male mind, the idea of a sex worker actually talking about her life seemed...

A house divided: elected senators are a 21st century no-brainer.(POLITICS)
November 1, 2008... The federal general election has just returned a new Parliament. But the only thing "new" about this Parliament is the lower chamber; all the Senators are the same. Had Stephen Harper been able to convince the last Parliament to pass two...

Paved with money: free-flowing infrastructure funds are tempting targets for cash-strapped cities.(ECONOMICS)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Virtuous causes make great cover: if you want to perpetuate a boondoggle, there is nowhere better to hide than behind a legitimate public concern. With a heavy heart, I'm beginning to wonder if Canada's...

Why I love porn: a new generation of feminists are reclaiming porn, both as consumers and producers. A (very) intimate journey.(Personal account)
November 1, 2008... The first time I remember thinking critically about pornography, I was 15. It was the early 1990s, and my friend and I were going through a stack of discarded magazines, undertaking the well-loved teenage art of collage. Between the Cosmos and...

All that glitters: Alex Felipe witnesses the toxic effects of Canadian gold mining on three remote Philippine communities.
November 1, 2008... ADMITTING THAT I WAS A CANADIAN has never been as difficult as when I travelled to the Philippines to photograph two Canadian-owned open-pit mining sites last winter. The fact that I am also Filipino by blood didn't help. I went to the...

Buzz bows out: after 16 hears leading the CAW, Buzz Hargrove is moving on. He may be retiring, but that doesn't mean he's shy.(Canadian Auto Workers)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Working on the Canadian political left is like walking a minefield. It's almost impossible to rise to a position of authority without making enemies within the ranks. Every NDP premier knows this, as do most veteran...

Great Canadian literary hunt 2008.(Awards list)
November 1, 2008... Congratulations to the winners! POETRY WINNERS FIRST PLACE Eight Kinds of Knots by Jeff Latosik SECOND PLACE Downwind by Joelene Heathcote THIRD PLACE Last Stop, Siem Reap by Jamella Hagen ...

Eight Kinds of Knots.(POETRY * 1ST)(Poem)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Eight Kinds of Knots A streetcar stalled on Howard Park and Roncesvalles Ave. Passengers cleared, they fume in sunlight, waiting for a newer version of the part that held their afternoon...

The port-wine-stain removal technique.(FICTION * 1ST)(Short story)
November 1, 2008... MONDAY Pearl turned the cold water off first, then the hot. As the last of the water slipped down the drain, she pulled e shower curtain back and leaned forward to grab a thin white towel from the rack. While still standing in the tub....

Downwind.(POETRY * 2ND)(Poem)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Downwind April 4, 1979. Victims were downwind from a top-secret Soviet biological warfare research centre. Sixty-six people died of anthrax inhalation. (Washington Post Foreign Service, Dec. 16,...

Make yourself feel better.(FICTION * 2ND)(Short story)
November 1, 2008... I want to steal something so bad I could squeal. I am standing in a music store, ogling new shrink-wrapped CDs and thinking of the rush I would feel waltzing past the antitheft devices with my pockets full, zinging with anticipation like a bomb...

Last stop, Siem Reap.(POETRY * 3RD)(Poem)
November 1, 2008... Last stop, Siem Reap Not just a question of eating rat but of what the rat has eaten. Those small steaming legs, slices of spine, it seems the only thing to do is dig these chopsticks in,...

A Line of Credit.(FICTION * 3RD)(Short story)
November 1, 2008... If Italian isn't grand it's gaudy, but Aunt Evelyn's taste has brought me to Montreal's finest. "Buon giorno." The maitre d's smile painfully, supported by paper-thin folds of chin. "Buon giorno." I try my Italian on this Italian. I'm...

Straight outta' Limoilou: Quebec City rapper Webster is a hip hop historian.(ARTS & IDEAS)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] QUEBEC CITY'S recent 400th anniversary celebration was quite a spectacle--Paul McCartney, Celine Dion, treasures from the Louvre, and even the occasional nod to diversity like the multicultural rap show, Hip hop tout...

Not-so-quiet revolution.(MANIFESTO)(Brief article)
November 1, 2008... SIXTY YEARS AGO, on the occasion of Quebec's 340th birthday, the painter Paul-Emile Borduas gave to his beloved home province an unusual gift: an evisceration in 14 pages, entitled Le Refus Global (Total Refusal). Written by Borduas, and signed...

Painting the town.(DOCUMENTARY)(Brief article)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WHEN PETER GIBSON was arrested in 2004, it looked like the end of his street-artist alter-ego, Roadsworth. Alan Kohl certainly thought he would have to stop filming Gibson, a project he had started a few months...

Dora Borealis.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2008... Dora Borealis by Daccia Bloomfield ECW Press, 228pp. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] AS A QUIET EIGHT-YEAR-OLD more or less ignored by his creative-class parents, Flip strikes up a rapport with the ghostly Belle, who may or may not be...

Graphic, but not so novel: not all comic-book adaptations are created equal.(FILM)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Watchmen, a graphic novel by Alan Moore, is something of a holy icon in comic book world. I have this on good authority, having asked a number of men (mostly in their mid-thirties) who maintain that when Watchmen was...

Canadian books under attack: sometimes from their authors.(BOOKS)
November 1, 2008... When B.C. mom Jean Baird realized her son had managed to graduate high school without having a single Canadian book assigned to him in English class, she decided to do something about the situation. She lobbied the B.C. government, gathered...

Sins of Jezebel.com: this sensational blog is addictive. But is it feminist?(WEB)(Website overview)
November 1, 2008... I never wanted to be a feminist. Frankly it was a label I avoided, rife with expectations of vegan footwear, Ani DiFranco singles, and a parade of oversensitized paramours. For years, feminists seemed like versions of my petrifying second-year...

Drawn and quartered: political cartoons prove that sometimes the pen really is mightier.(THEN & NOW)
November 1, 2008... 1754 Benjamin Franklin stops messing around with kites long enough to create what's been credited as the first North American political cartoon. In it, a rattlesnake is shown chopped into pieces representing the colonies. Below is the...